Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-05-06
IMMIGRATION.
Extent and Danger of Foreign Immigra-
ton to the United States.
philnHnInhIn prnar

ton to the United States.
Philadelphia Press.
The announcement that the ocean
steamers carrying immigrants to this
country are Overburdened with applica-
lions for passage, and that hundreds are
encamped in Queenstown awaiting accom-
modations, shows that the ii de OF immi-
grafton which has been steadily falling
| Tor four years past is again on the rise.
In 1882 immigration reached its food
mark, 788, 1872 persons having been
added in that year TO our
population in this way. The fol-
! lowing year the number fell to 603, 322,
and 1888 saw further decrease to $751;
! 592 The year 1885 sliced off another
large fraction, leaving the number at
| $685. this was only slightly diminished
in 1886, 392, 887 having immigrated in
| that year. But the return of business
| prosperity promises, as 1t always has
done, to put the figures again on the as
cendiDg scale, and add, perhaps, a
polyglot host of $780, 900 persons TO the
population Of this country during 1887.
The growth Of socialism and commuu-
ism within he past few years has drawn
serious attention to the question whether
| longer the indiscriminate immigration
which has gone on during the past thirty
years. The census of 1880 showed that
there were G,679,9 people of foreign
birth in the country, and that their
! children numbered 8,316,053 The total
foreign immigration since 1880 aggregates
1854, 1852, go that, allowing for deaths,
probably one in every eight Of the present
yNCr,ulofiOv 10 Of h1rtb
show that from this class comes Is per
cent. of the criminals, about the same
proportion Of paupers and probably so
per cent. CT the saloon keepers. But even
these are not the worst results to the
nation from indiscriminate immigration.
! The anarchists and socialists whose pro-
ceedipgs have threatened the stability of
social order, especially in the western
cities, are made up almost wholly of men
of foreign birth. It was the German
| socialists who conceived aud carried out
the Haymarket plot in Chicago, and the
Milwaukee rioters were almost to man
Polish anarchists,
But along with this increase in the
criminal, pauper and cOmmunistic ele-
ment is another evil, and one inseparable
from it. 1t is the alarming growth of the
iliterste class. The state census OF
Massachusetts taken in 1885 is the latest
and most significant authority on this
subject. II shows that in that state there
are l2l, 572 persons over ten years of age
who Can not read and write. For nearly
all this illiteraCy the influx of foreigners
into the seaport and manufacturing
towns is responsible. Fail River
alone has 1892 persons unable to
read and write. In Lowell and
Adams the illiterates number one in
ten; in Blackstone, Douglas and Web
ster, one in eight; in HOlyOke ard Spen-
Ger, one IN seven. 4 special examination
inside in some of the mills discovered the
fact that from enc fifth to one-third of the
employees between the ages OF fourteen
and sixteen are totally illiterate. The
fishing towns present an exhibit equally
startling and diScOuraging, growing out
of the presence of large numbers of Ital-
ian ana Portuguese fishermen. That this
great mass of illiteracy is almost wholly
due to foreign immigration is shown By
the fact that less than l per cent. OF the
illiterares were born in Massachusetts Of
parents born in Massachusetts.
This exhibit in state which possesses
a school system so nearly perfectsas Mas
sachusetts does may well cause appre-
hension as to the possibility of dealing
with the promiscuOus immigration, the
tide Of which has again begun to roll upon
our shores in increasing volume. 1t
would be unfair to class all immigrants
as Ignorant, or even d msjority of them,
and the question is how they can be
sieved and screened and the worthy ones
admitted while the criminals and pau
pers and illiterates are returned to the
countries which gladly spewed them
out. Some method of dealing with
this subject will have to be found
and as the states themselves can not i'm
pose restrictions the question rests with
Congress. That the people are becoming
aroused to the Importance of the matter
is shown by the growing strength of
what is known as the american move
ment," which seeks to establish an immi'
grafton quarantine. Whether this plan
is the best or not, it is plain that some
restrictive methods must be adopted
which will prevent America from being
any longer the human dumping ground
for Europe and Asia.
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